The battles continued without pause. Magikarp and Feebas took turns stepping into the arena, accepting one challenge after another. Whenever they were injured, Ash healed them with his Viridian Power, and when their stamina ran low, they relied on Aqua Ring to recover on their own.
This large-scale real combat training session at the river estuary lasted all the way until the sun climbed high into the sky before finally coming to an end.
After an entire morning of continuous battles, both Pokémon saw their levels rise.
Magikarp (Valor): LV.15 → LV.17
Feebas (Lumina): LV.15 → LV.17
Each had gained two levels, a clear reward for their relentless effort.
"Alright, let's head back."
After thanking the Gyarados couple who had helped maintain order, as well as the wild Water-type Pokémon who had participated in the battles, Ash led his two Pokémon back home.
It wasn't just Magikarp and Feebas who had improved. After a full morning of dedicated training, Pikachu, Greninja, Pidgeot, and Fearow had all significantly increased their move proficiency as well.
On Pikachu's side, five key moves—Parabolic Charge, Electroweb, Eerie Impulse, Volt Switch, and Electrify—had all been undergoing intense training.
Among them, Parabolic Charge, which combined damage and recovery, and Electroweb, which provided both damage and control, were the most critical. After days of hard work, both moves had finally reached the Mastered level that Ash required.
The remaining three moves, while still useful, were more supplementary compared to these two core abilities.
With Electroweb and Parabolic Charge perfected, and combined with its already established arsenal of offensive, defensive, control, speed, interference, and recovery moves, Pikachu's combat system was now fully mature.
Greninja, Pidgeot, and Fearow had also made impressive progress.
Greninja had brought Night Slash, Shadow Sneak, and Sucker Punch all the way up to Mastered level in just two and a half days.
Pidgeot had done the same with Hurricane and Hyper Beam. Despite being high-tier moves, with the system's assistance and focused training, both had reached Mastered proficiency within the same timeframe.
As for Fearow, the youngest and weakest member of the first-tier core team, it had been under immense pressure.
Ahead of it were Pikachu, Greninja, and Pidgeot, all pushing forward as powerful rivals. Behind it, Magikarp and Feebas were rapidly catching up. Surrounded by this pressure, Fearow trained with absolute intensity, never allowing itself to slack off for even a moment.
Its two core offensive moves, Drill Run and Drill Peck, both relying on its sharp beak, had now also reached Mastered level.
Although its level remained at LV.35, still five levels behind Pikachu and four behind Greninja and Pidgeot, its strength had grown significantly through sheer effort.
Once he managed to acquire the six items—Quick Claw, Sharp Beak, Razor Claw, Razor Fang, Wide Lens, and Scope Lens—Ash was confident that Fearow would experience a massive leap in power.
On the way back from treating injured wild Pokémon at Stone Bridge and Dashiwan Valley, Ash glanced at Fearow, who was chirping excitedly while chatting with Pidgeot, and couldn't help but think ahead.
After returning home, Ash first prepared food for his Pokémon. Once they had finished eating, he released the customer Pokémon from his online shop in batches, letting Greninja help supervise their feeding.
Meanwhile, Ash headed to the kitchen to prepare his own lunch. Fortunately, his mother, Delia Ketchum, had already cooked earlier in the morning and stored the dishes in the fridge. All he needed to do was heat them up once the rice finished cooking.
After setting the rice cooker, Ash quickly returned to the backyard to help again.
The business at his skill shop was booming. Thanks to the "Magikarp + Tackle" breakthrough, he had secured long-term orders from the Kanto League and several major families.
As a result, he now had to manage over a hundred Pokémon daily.
Although his own Pokémon helped, the real backbone of the operation was Greninja. Pikachu, Pidgeot, and Fearow, despite having limbs, simply weren't as dexterous as a humanoid Pokémon like Greninja when it came to handling such tasks.
Fortunately, the shop's workflow was well-structured. Daily operations mainly involved feeding the Pokémon, teaching them moves in batches according to a pre-arranged plan, and then returning them to their trainers.
Rotom handled the backend logistics, including scheduling, customer service, and managing the fan group, leaving Ash free to focus on the most critical part—using the system to teach moves.
In many ways, he had truly become a hands-off shop owner.
Working alongside Greninja, feeding Pokémon, teaching moves as prompted by Rotom, and sending them back—this routine had already become second nature.
Compared to that, something else required his attention.
A few days ago, to help Pikachu learn Electroweb, Ash had borrowed a Galvantula from Professor Juniper's lab in Unova through Professor Oak.
The move had been successfully copied the moment the Poké Ball arrived. However, to avoid suspicion, Ash had deliberately kept Galvantula for a couple of days instead of sending it back immediately.
Now that enough time had passed, after feeding Galvantula at noon, Ash contacted Professor Oak, then called Professor Juniper to express his thanks before returning Galvantula to her lab in Unova.
Once everything related to the skill shop was handled and Galvantula had been sent back, the rice was ready.
Ash reheated the stir-fried pork his mother had prepared and sat down for lunch.
By the time he finished eating, cleaned up the kitchen, and washed all the dishes, it was already 12:40 PM.
After a full morning of training, the afternoon until evening was reserved as rest time for his Pokémon.
But Ash, as their trainer, had no such luxury.
His afternoon was packed.
He needed to head to the Viridian Gym to continue learning under his mentor, Giovanni, and also discuss setting a fixed schedule for his future training sessions.
There was still much to do, and Ash had no intention of slowing down.
--------------
T/N:
Access Advance Chapters on my
P@treon: [email protected]/PokePals